UHV snaps losing streak, splits two with Texas Welseyan

By
MIKE FORMAN
March 11, 2013 at 10:01 p.m.Updated March 10, 2013 at 10:11 p.m.

Cory Carter has learned an important lesson about pitching this season.

Carter knows he won't have his best stuff every time he takes the mound, but he can still be successful if he minimizes the damage.

"That's all baseball is: just don't give up the big inning," he said. "If you keep the other team from doing that, you've got a pretty good shot at winning the game."

Carter limited Texas Wesleyan to five hits and carried UHV to a 4-1 win in the second game of a doubleheader on a sunny but chilly Monday at Riverside Stadium.

The Rams (19-9) pounded out 15 hits to win the first game 8-4.

Carter picked up his first win of the season and pitched his first complete game while helping the Jaguars (5-15) snap a five-game losing streak.

"Today, I felt like I did a good job of keeping certain people off the bases and threw a lot of strikes and let the defense work," he said. "It turned out pretty well for us today."

Carter got off to a shaky start when he walked the leadoff batter David Kiriakos and threw an errant pickoff throw that allowed him to go to third.

But Carter got a fly out, ground out, and Kiriakos was thrown out at the plate by shortstop Dylan Blaha when he tried to score on a double-steal attempt.

"Throwing up a zero there was big," said UHV coach Terry Puhl. "A runner on third base with nobody out, and they don't score. Cory had good velocity. He got some good ground balls, double play balls, and that's what he has to do. You probably noticed (when) he got to the seventh inning he was still around 70 pitches instead of 90."

Carter threw 108 pitches while walking two and striking out five.

"They are a really good hitting team," Carter said. "Most of their hits in the first game came on off-speed stuff, so I just really wanted to attack them with the fastball and keep it in. In the later innings, when they started realizing that, then I started to mix in the off-speed."

The Jaguars backed Carter with seven hits. Stephen Shorkey had two hits and two RBIs, and Josh Boothe hit his first collegiate home run, a solo shot to right field in the third inning.

"I was just trying to go up there and stay calm and stay inside the ball," Boothe said. "He just gave me a good fastball inside, and I just tried to stroke it. I just happened to hit it well enough to get out."

UHV had 12 hits in the first game but had two runners thrown out on the bases that took them out of big innings.

The Jaguars used six pitchers, but the Rams scored in every inning but the fifth and the seventh.

"They're dropping two spots in the first three innings and that can't happen," Puhl said. "We've been swinging the bats better. In the last two weeks, we've been swinging the bats. If we can get some quality starting pitching, we'll do better."

UHV will try to put together a winning streak when it returns to Riverside Stadium for a doubleheader against Texas College on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

"I feel like we're getting closer and closer every day," Boothe said. "We're coming together more as a team so that's really the most important thing. I think we're getting closer and closer every day. I think when it's all said and done we'll be firing on all cylinders."